Write to Elder Reiley

Monday, July 14, 2014

07/14/2014

Dear Family,

So
did you get my letter yet? We can use the postal system at any time so
be sure to check the mail. We check the mail twice a day here and I put
my unit number on my letter so you can get it that way. The food is
actually pretty good. We eat dinner at 4:30 so that is hard to get used
to, but I am enjoying the food. My companion is Elder Luke Wilson from
Bountiful, Utah. He reminds me a lot of Justin Coburn. He is really
knowledgeable about the gospel and has a good testimony. We are getting
along great. I love my district/zone. There were 12 elders and 4 sisters
that came to the MTC the same day that are going to Vancouver,
Washington. My district of eight is all elders. We are all 18 except for
Elder Brase from Topeka, Kansas. He is the veteran here that has
already put in a year at BYU and he is my favorite missionary.

The
days pretty much consist of studying, eating and teaching. There is a
lot of role lays here, which is weird for me, but I think it's helping.
Some missionaries get really into it and it is kind of weird but it
works. I am learning what to study for myself and with my companion.

The
sleep has been in short supply for several reasons. When you combine no
fan, a rock hard mattress, epic snoring, and a racing mind, the sleep
does not come easy. However, I am getting tired enough at nights where I
am sleeping better. There re four elders in our room. Just a fun fact,
over 600 missionaries checked into the Provo MTC on the same day as me.
About 85% of them were from Utah.

As
far as fingernail clippers go, I am probably good. One Elder said, "Hey
I forgot fingernail clippers." and everybody was like, "me too!" HaHa.
but it's not like I used fingernail clippers at home so I probably won't
need them here either.

Just
a funny story for one activity in class, we had to summarize the whole
restoration in 30 seconds to another elder. The point of this was to
keep it simple and focus on what's important, but everybody just tried
to talk faster. So I said, "The gospel was taken off the earth after
Christ and his apostles were illed into what was called the apostasy
which was restored in the latter days." It was a difficult exercise, but
it made me think that this whole gospel is focused on Jesus Christ.
When we start going deep into other topice, it is just going further
away from Jesus Christ.

So
I absolutely loooooove my branch president. His name is President Brown
(his first name is Mike!) and he is hilarious. He is spiritual too. He
will cry two to three different times for every talk/testimony. He gave
such a great talk on Sunday. He talked about the faith of Jesus Christ.
He talked about the story of Alma and Amulek. They had enough faith to
sit there and watch women and children get thrown into a fire even
though they had the pow3er to sotp it whenever they wanted. I know that I
don't have that kind of faith as of yet, but I am still working on it.

My favorite Grandpa Hart memory was when we went on the Oklahoma trip and listened to some of his childhood memories.

So
Lebron James just continues to haunt me. He is trying to distract me
but it's not going to work! HaHa. It is actually working a little bit; I
was asking everybody what was true and what wasn't. They better not win
a championship for the next two years, but record everything just in
case. That is so cool that he came back, even though now all of the Heat
fans will be Cavalier fans. Somebody keep me updated on all of the
sports. World Cut? Indians? NBA free agents? It is different just not
being able to know what is going on but it is good too.

So
I saw Elder Robbie Tolbert here. He left today. He is assigned to
Australia but he is waiting for his Visa so he got called to Las Vegas.
It was ice to see somebody I knew, especially because everybody here is
from Utah so everybody sees to be friends from high school. I told my
district that only four students from my graduating class have their
mission call and they looked at me like I was from Mars! Most classes in
Utah have over 100 students that received their calls.

Most of my letters won't be this long, but we got a little extra time today. Keep writing me; your letters help me out